"So we won't be able to go any further huh?" Reign asked Lisea as she stood right next to him on the balcony of a castle. A sprawling city could be seen around the castle as a large army was currently getting inside of it.
"Unfortunately that's correct, the other kingdoms have already acted, the capital of Irtil has been taken and most of the land there has been conquered as well, as, for Older and Lusom, we managed to get some territory, but we failed at taking the capital cities, both of the other two top kingdoms have managed to take over 1 capital city, while an alliance of 3 other kingdoms has control of one."
"Perhaps it's for the best, this way the situation in the area stays the same, if you guys suddenly conquered everything then they might have attacked you right away, at least this way you won't be touched as everybody got a piece of the pie." Reign said as he looked at Oran, the capital city of the kingdom of Asuria which was led by Licht who they had captured more than a week ago.
Ever since the battle between the coalition and Riplas ended, Riplas continued onwards, they immediately charged out from the fortifications and attacked the coalition territories, conquering new territories and expanding the kingdom. Of course, they weren't successful at conquering everything as the neighboring kingdoms did the same.
Under the guise of helping the coalition survive and stopping further bloodshed, the kingdoms all conquered the territories and Riplas was unable to attack them since that would mean declaring war on them. The situation was still good however as Riplas had truly made a good profit from this, not only did they manage to get more territories, but because they had captured Licht, they managed to successfully take over the capital city of Asuria and most of the territory it had without even fighting against them.
All the citizens and soldiers wanted to make sure their king was safe, they knew that there was no point in struggling against Riplas as they were outnumbered and were weaker individually compared to their soldiers. With the conquest of Asuria, the kingdom of Riplas now had some of the best engineers in the area working for them, not only that, but the incredible amount of blueprints and devices and gadgets would be theirs as well.
Licht was pissed off, the kingdom his ancestors worked so hard to create had crumbled during his reign like it was nothing. Of course, he couldn't be only angry at the enemy since he was one of those that got swayed and decided to attack Riplas in order to become stronger. If anything, he was angry at himself for allowing such a thing to happen, when he first got the invitation to join the coalition he actually spent about 2 days thinking about it.
Attacking a large kingdom such as Riplas was never going to be easy, the geographic location of Riplas allowed it to defend itself incredibly well and it was definitely going to take a lot of sacrifices if they were to take it down.
Licht even thought of faking his acceptance of the coalition and then working together with Riplas in order to take down the kingdoms before splitting the territory with Riplas, only to wipe that thought off after seeing just how well prepared the kingdoms were, not to mention the mysterious backer they had who was constantly giving them resources.
Licht saw no reason not to join them in the end and accepted before attacking the kingdom with the others. It didn't go as planned however, even though they were able to cause a lot of casualties for the kingdom early on, they were unable to take down as many top combatants of the kingdom as they thought they could.
It mostly came down to Lico and the Judge who was much stronger than anyone had anticipated, especially the Judge who had been quite low-key up until that point. The casualties on their sides started piling up and with Raigon taking over command of the fortification and managing to win against huge numbers, they had to retreat and re-organize.
It was mostly thanks to the resources that the backer had sent them that they were able to summon multiple troops that they incorporated into their army, the biggest drawback for doing so was the lack of unity the army would have with those troops inside, not to mention the lack of loyalty and knowledge about their tactics.
Summoning Yufan and his elite troops were something that cost them dearly, but it was a necessary cost since they wanted to see what exactly Raigon had in store for them. Even with that however they still failed to find out everything since Reign managed to overpower both Yufan and Sios and kill them both.
The kingdom of Riplas also had some summoned troops in their army, but thanks to their army being one whole, it was easier for them to incorporate the new troops and get them acquainted with everyone. The biggest thing the kingdom did however was summoning Reign, not only was he incredibly powerful and had become one of their strongest combatants, but he also managed to later kill the king of Older, and go through the first evolution together with Raigon, and completely turn the tides of the war.
Licht was sitting on a chair in what used to be his throne room. He didn't have any chains or shackles on him and he could freely use his mana. His devices had been taken from him, but he still had most of his equipment, Reign and Lisea were always with him and everyone knew that the chance of him trying something now was slim to none.
The kingdom of Asuria had bent the knee and Licht could do nothing about it, it was after all his fault that something like this had happened and he accepted it. All in all, the kingdom of Riplas had managed to expand their territory by a good margin, with most of what used to be Asuria conquered and them taking parts of the kingdom of Older and Lusom, the kingdom had grown by about 40%.
Of course not everything was well, with the kingdom taking over that territory, they of course needed to take care of it and defend it. Compared to their kingdom which was in a great location, the others were not as neighboring kingdoms could attack easily. The kingdom of Riplas was the only kingdom that had such great luck to be in such a great geographical position in the area after all.
"So, I guess we are returning to the capital?" Reing asked Lisea who nodded her head in confirmation. The war was finally over and it was time for the king to give out rewards to everyone. Lisea nodded to Reign before looking at Licht who was still angry at them. After he had woken up from being choked out by Reign, the man was furious and demanded that they continue the battle and finish him off. Of course, that didn't happen and after the kingdom had taken over Asuria, his demeanor changed, after seeing how his people surrendered in order to keep him alive he stopped demanding his own death and accepted his defeat.
Of course that didn't mean he would be on good terms with Reign or Lisea, he would rarely talk with them, and even though his life was guaranteed by them and the king after taking over Asuria, he still felt that they might kill him after they all returned to the capital.
The kingdom's army was already in Asuria and it would be easy to get rid of anyone that tried to fight against them at this point. There was pretty much nothing stopping the Kingdom of Riplas from simply cutting off his head at this moment. He would of course need to wait before arriving in the capital before finding out exactly what would happen.
The army was of course still stationed at the new territories that the kingdom had taken over, all the first evolution combatants, on the other hand, were summoned back. Raigon's spies were working double as usual in order to confirm that all of the first evolution combatants of the other kingdoms were far away and wouldn't manage to attack the kingdom in a short period of time.
Since that was the case, it was safe for all of them to return, they weren't only going back to get rewards, but they also needed to work together and find out what had happened to Lios. After Reign and Raigon went through the first evolution and helped the kingdom win the war, Raigon returned to the capital in order to find traces of his father, he was unfortunately unsuccessful as there was no trace at all.
He tried hard but came up with nothing even after a week of searching around, perhaps with the others here the results would be different.
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